CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, 29x11 JUNE, 1883. 



MR. THOMAS SPRECKLEY (Chairman of the Thames 

 Angling Preservation Society) presided. In introducing 

 Mr. Marston, he said he was a gentleman who had de- 

 scended from the higher realms of piscatorialism on this 

 occasion ; for, though he was a trout and salmon fisherman, 

 he had now come to tell them what he knew of the coarser 

 kinds of fish, which give great pleasure to tens of thousands 

 of their poorer brethren as anglers who could not afford 

 to fish for trout or salmon. He himself knew very little 

 of what was called the science of fish breeding, but he 

 believed that no one could feel more than he did the neces- 

 sity of protection for the fish. He had seen rivers where 

 you could scarcely get a fish worth taking, and yet when 

 he had four or five miles under his care, at the end of four 

 years, without the aid of anything foreign, simply by pro- 

 tection, by having a book of rules and laws, it had been so 

 improved that the last time he fished there he took a jack 

 of eleven pounds, and three over seven pounds, besides 

 smaller ones which he put back. At the same time he 

 never refused permission to fish but once. 



